Jonathan Gruber

Jonathan Gruber is the premier health economist in America. He is Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1992. He is also the Director of the Health Care Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he is a Research Associate, and the incoming President of the American Society of Health Economists. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Social Insurance.

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His new book, co-authored with Simon Johnson, Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream is the untold story of how America once created the most successful economy the world has ever seen and how we can do it again.

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During the 1997-1998 academic year, Dr. Gruber was on leave as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Treasury Department. He was a key architect of Massachusetts’ ambitious health reform effort under Mitt Romney, and in 2006 became an inaugural member of the Health Connector Board, the main implementing body for that effort. He was a principal architect of Massachusetts' landmark reforms. During the 2008 campaign he was a consultant to the Clinton, Edwards and Obama Presidential campaigns and was called by the Washington Post, "possibly the [Democratic] party's most influential health-care expert." During 2009-2010 he served as a technical consultant to the Obama Administration and worked with both the Administration and Congress to help craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In 2011 he was named “One of the Top 25 Most Innovative and Practical Thinkers of Our Time” by Slate Magazine. In both 2006 and 2012 he was rated as one of the top 100 most powerful people in health care in the United States by Modern Healthcare Magazine.

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Dr. Gruber received his B.S. in Economics from MIT, and his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard. He has received an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, a FIRST award from the National Institute on Aging, and was one of 15 scientists nationwide to receive the Presidential Faculty Fellow Award from the National Science Foundation in 1995. In 2006 he received the American Society of Health Economists Inaugural Medal for the best health economist in the nation aged 40 and under. Dr. Gruber's research focuses on the areas of public finance and health economics. He has published more than 160 research articles, has edited six research volumes, and is the author of Public Finance and Public Policy, a leading undergraduate text.

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His book, Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It's Necessary, How It Works, is an innovative and accessible graphic treatment of the ACA and a powerful argument for the individual mandate.

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Jonathan Gruber's talks bring to bear a unique mix or academic expertise and policy insights. His talks focus on the changing landscape of health care in the U.S., both in terms of the changes brought about by the ACA, and the critical long run problem of controlling health care costs. He has a particular focus on consumer engagement in health care: how do we encourage patients to consume health care intelligently, and what are the key new developments in consumer engagement? He can also provide a realistic perspective on the promise and pitfalls of current efforts to control costs while discussing which cost control efforts hold the most promise for the future.

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